


Real Gold

by TeaRoses



Category: Silent Hill 3 - Fandom
Genre: F/F, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 16:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12113109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: Claudia makes Heather remember. Another little something I wrote for femslashficlets, for the prompt "charm."  It's a little similar to my ficlet "Going Back" but with a very different ending.





	Real Gold

Heather is tired, much too tired to continue. She sits on the concrete and leans against a wall, thinking something or someone will catch her and not sure which would be worse, the monsters or the humans. Claudia appears as if summoned by her thoughts and without speaking, sits beside her, smoothing out her long skirts and smiling. Smiling does not suit her.

"Do you remember this?" Claudia asks, dangling a gold bracelet in front of her face. Heather shakes her head and tries to get up but it's just too much for her right now. Claudia keeps asking questions.

"You don't remember giving it to me?" she asks. "You don't know what it stands for?"

A small charm of the profile of a girl's head hangs on the bracelet, and on the back is engraved "Alessa" in tiny letters. "My name is Heather," she snaps, but there's no point in arguing because she does remember. She was cold that day, shivering in the schoolyard, waiting alone, proud of herself that she had found something nice to give to her friend. And it even had her name on it. She had found it at home where it had been discarded by her mother--"

Heather's mind shuts down then. She refuses to think about her mother.

Claudia takes Heather's hand as if they are still friends. "Don't you know how much I love you?" she asks. "You're the most important thing in the world to me." She draws closer, and Heather can feel Claudia's breath on her cheek. "You never really fit in, in the world out there, did you?" she asks. "Oh, you had friends and you thought you were normal but you never really loved anyone, did you?"

"I loved my father," says Heather.

"You didn't really love him, because he isn't really your father. And look at everything that he kept hidden from you." She gestures out at the buildings of Silent Hill that surround them as if they are some kind of paradise rather than a nightmare. "This, all this, is what you were waiting for. You know, because you've seen it in your dreams."

Claudia is starting into her eyes now and Heather feels like she cannot move. She has seen this place, and Claudia, in her dreams so many times. "No one knows you but me, Alessa. No one loves you but me. And no one has ever loved you, not really."

"I don't have to sit here and listen to this," she says, but in her mind she is someone else, the girl with dark hair that she never grew up to be. The girl Claudia loved. For a moment all she can think is that Claudia is telling her the truth, that Heather belongs here and that she doesn't know her real friends or her real family or even her own name. Claudia kisses her, and Heather doesn't pull back. She tastes of cold and rust but Heather doesn't even care, not now. 

A vague memory pushes itself into her mind. She once kissed a girl at school, too, and it wasn't like this. It was something soft and gentle and warm. That girl tasted of chocolate and lip gloss and they ended by holding each other close and laughing. With that Heather remembers the real world, and she knows where she is and what she is doing. She stands up, grabs the charm, throws it to the ground and grinds it into the dirt with her heel. With a shaking hand she points her knife at Claudia. "I am Heather. And I don't love you. I'm going back where I belong, and you can go to hell."

Claudia backs away and Heather follows her with the knife. "I'm getting out of this place. Don't think I won't kill you if I have to." Heather shivers, because she knows it's true and it gives her a frightening power. Claudia, tears streaming from her eyes, turns and runs through a doorway. 

Heather doesn't follow. She puts her knife back on her belt and keeps walking. "I'm getting out of here," she repeats to herself. "I'm going to see people and places I've never even thought of, that look nothing like this, and I will kiss a girl again, one that isn't anything like Claudia."

She is still tired, and still terrified, but she believes that there is a chance what she says is true and it keeps her walking, looking for a way out.


End file.
